“Law, I must be getting old, Emily. I get so short-winded every time I exert myself the least bit. I declare these china plates are still the prettiest ones I’ve got. Not a nick in one of them. That’s because I’ve always washed them myself. These came all the way from Pittsburgh by boat. My gracious, that was twenty-seven years ago! Brother Samuel went all the way up into Kentucky some place with the wagon to meet the boat and bring the goods to Nashville to your uncle Jackson’s store. Indians were everywhere too, those days. I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep till Brother Sam got back and my husband too—he was away off to Philadelphia. Sam was gone forty six days and my husband gone for two months.” “You’ve been alone so much, aunt Rachel. If ever I get a husband I won’t let him leave me for even one day.” Rachel let her breath out slowly. There was that little pain again, that came sometimes. She used Magic Sanitive Salve faithfully as her husband directed but it didn’t seem to do much good. “When you get a husband he’ll go where duty calls him and you won’t be able to hold him back any more than any other woman. But it does look as though duty called Andrew Jackson more than most men and into more dangerous places. I declare I still like these old plates best of all. Maybe it’s because they were the first nice things ever I owned.” “Uncle Jackson likes the dangerous places,” Emily said. “He wouldn’t have missed all that Indian fighting and defeating the British at New Orleans for anything.” Rachel pursed her lips. “He didn’t like that business of being governor of Florida any better than I did. Thank the Lord we got away from that place! So hot there in Pensacola and all that babble-gabble around you, all Spanish so you couldn’t tell if they were calling you names or not. I was mighty thankful to turn my face back towards Tennessee and poor little Andy was sick every minute we were there.” “It was the mosquitoes,” declared Andrew Jackson, Junior, from his high perch on the stool. “They poisoned me. I can’t help it if my hide is thin. And all that pepper in the victuals—onions too, and I never could bear onions. What else do you want from up here, Mama? Nothing left but soup tureens and teapots.” “We’ll need two tureens. Your Papa thinks he hasn’t had anything to eat unless he has soup. Count those plates again, will you, Emily? My head’s all in a swivet. As many crowds of people as I’ve fed on this place you’d think I’d get used to it but I always forget something.” Hannah came in then for the tablecloths that Sary would press. Little Negroes would hold the corners and edges high so that they would not touch the floor and when the five-yard lengths of damask were glistening smooth they would be carried in ceremoniously and spread over a spare bed till Christmas morning.